In the textile industry, the processing of sheets of material typically includes the step of inspecting the sheet to identify defective material. Later, the sheet is wound onto a sleeve to form a full package or roll of finished material.
Prior to winding the sheet into a finished package, sheet sections having major defects often are severed from the sheet and discarded. If the cutting and removal of the defective section occurs as the sheet is being wound into a finished package, the winding operation must be halted while the defective section is cut and removed. Moreover, an overlapping between the sheet length following the removed defective section and the sheet length preceding the defective section is often desired and this overlapping must necessarily be arranged before the preceding section has been fully wound onto the roll.
The cutting and removal of the defective sections and the overlapping of the preceding and subsequent sections significantly increases the time required to wind a sheet into a finished roll. Accordingly, the need exists for a method and apparatus which minimizes the dead time of the winding operation by increasing the speed of the cutting and removal of the defective sections and overlapping operations. Additionally, the need exists for a method and apparatus which is adaptable to both defective sections and cutting and removal operations which lag the inspection of the sheet (i.e., cutting and removal operations controlled by a computer inputted with a defective section record disk). Furthermore, there is a need for a method and apparatus for cutting and removing samples from a sheet with minimum disruption of the winding process.